


When I Grow Up...

by Waldo



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Community: HorizonsSing, Episode Related, Episode: s02e06 Reset, Ficlet, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-26
Updated: 2008-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waldo/pseuds/Waldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I was eight, Jack.  I had the attention span of a drunken ferret.  Everything sounded interesting for a little while."</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Grow Up...

**Author's Note:**

> Subtle nod to The West Wing in here.  Kudos to anyone who spots it. :)  Written for [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/horizonssing/profile)[**horizonssing**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/horizonssing/), but I'm not even sure what day *I'm* on, let alone what day the picture of the red beret was.  Total fluff.

Jack snuck up behind Ianto and put the cap on his head.  "Present from Martha."

Ianto pulled the cap off, looked at it, and then, perversely, put it back on.  That would frustrate Jack far more than if he threw it at him or tossed it on the desk.

Jack raised an eyebrow, not sure what to do with an Ianto that didn't tell him not to play games during work hours.  "Ever want to be a soldier when you grew up?"

"Yep," Ianto said as he went back to filing the pictures from their last six cases.  "For about twenty minutes when I was eight.  Of course, when I was eight I think I wanted to be pretty much everything I _heard_ about for at least twenty minutes."

"A ballerina?" Jack asked as he fell into his chair.

"Well, perhaps not everything.  Though it was the early nineties, I believe I entertained the idea of trying to either join or form a boy-band."  Ianto pulled a picture out from under Jack's elbow and put it into its proper file.

"Can you sing?"  Jack asked, suddenly interested.

"Better than I can dance, I've since discovered."

Jack smiled and filed that comment away another time.  "So the soldier thing only lasted about twenty minutes, huh?" he asked.

"I was eight, Jack.  I had the attention span of a drunken ferret.  Everything sounded interesting for a little while."

"Did you want to be an alien hunter when you were eight?"  Jack grabbed a folder and a stack of photos and began organizing them, hoping that if he were helpful Ianto would feel more inclined to stick around and talk.

"After watching E.T. at friend's sleep over.  I'd seen a few monster movies and such where the aliens were always the bad guys and then there was E.T. and I felt so bad for him trying to get home.  So I decided that if aliens were real I wanted to be the sort who'd try to help them get home."  Ianto stopped working and leaned on one fist, elbow on the top of the filing cabinet, looking at Jack.  "When I was eight I thought it was all make-believe and went back to wanting to be a soldier or a teacher or a firefighter."

Jack smiled and pulled Ianto down onto his lap, adjusting the cap.  "I suppose a lot more kids want to be an alien hunter and then end up a soldier than the other way around."

"Well, 'conventional' isn't always what it's cracked up to be," he told Jack with a kiss.


End file.
